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Article

10 Feb 2016

Author:
Felicity Lawrence, Guardian (UK)

UK: 2 men jailed over trafficking of Lithuanian twins found working in chicken factory supplying leading supermarkets

Two Lithuanian men have been found guilty of trafficking two of their fellow countrymen, taking all but £20 of the wages they received over several months for working in food factories that supply many leading supermarkets. The victims, Edvinas and Edgarus Subatkis...were found working in a chicken factory owned by the largest poultry processor in the UK, the 2 Sisters Food Group, whose factory in Flixton, Suffolk, supplies meat to many leading British supermarkets, including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and M&S. The twins said their convicted gangmasters had repeatedly threatened them with violence....After several weeks, however, the Flixton factory’s human resources manager was alerted to a problem and interviewed the brothers. The manager, in turn, reported his concerns immediately to the Gangmaster Licensing Authority (GLA). In a ruling at King’s Lynn crown court earlier this month, Ratautas and Sasmurin were each sentenced to three and a half years in prison for trafficking and money laundering. They were also given the first ever slavery and trafficking prevention orders (STPOs) relating to labour exploitation in the UK....The supermarkets told the Guardian they did not tolerate slavery or trafficking and said they had imposed audits and codes of practice on suppliers, and joined an industry-wide initiative to prevent it. Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and M&S said that organised crime could occasionally penetrate these systems despite their best efforts, a position echoed by the GLA.